


A Fantastic Dress

by xsilverxlightx



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s01e03 The Unquiet Dead, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-27
Updated: 2012-04-27
Packaged: 2017-11-04 09:44:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/392448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xsilverxlightx/pseuds/xsilverxlightx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor's perspective set during The Unquiet Dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fantastic Dress

**Author's Note:**

> Written for The Unquiet Dead Rewatch challenge at Then There’s Us. Sort of inspired by picture 9, but mostly just by the fact I’d forgotten just how couple-y they’re already acting by this episode. I tried not to mention anything from later episodes but I couldn’t help a slight reference to The Doctor Dances.

When he tells her to go change he expects the TARDIS to leave out something simple for her so that she'll blend in. This  _isn't_  a date, even if he didn't bother to correct her when they went for chips and regardless of the fact that he has no real reason to take her to Christmas in Naples in 1860 beyond wanting to impress her. It doesn't occur to him that the TARDIS would see fit to leave out a stunning gown draped across an ornate couch right where Rose will see it.    
  
It was one thing to deny that he felt anything more than friendly affection for the girl when she was dressed in slightly baggy clothes she'd been wearing before, not because she wasn't pretty but because they kept him aware that she was just a human girl from Powell Estates and really they'd only just met. It was another thing entirely when she was standing there all dressed up and clearly hoping for his approval as she laughed nervously. He speaks without thinking and tells her she's beautiful before quickly backtracking and adding the dig about her being human. He purposefully doesn't watch her face as her expression falls slightly because he knows if he does he'll have to take that last statement back.    
  
He stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that this is maybe sort of a date. He watches her as they walk through the streets, uninterested in their surroundings because her look of wonder is far more exciting to someone who has seen as much as he has. Until that is, he realizes they are not where he thought they were. He loves- no, he likes that she insists repeatedly that she doesn't care if they aren't in 1860 or Naples. All things considered it is reasonably close to their intended destination.   
  
He has to remind himself as they're driving in Charles Dicken's coach that Rose is only nineteen and she's in his charge. He is going to rescue the girl because he is her protector; he is not the knight in shining armor going to rescue his princess. Not a romantic, him. It's probably just this time period, that fantastic dress, and the fact that he's sitting next to Charles Dickens. Yes. That's it. Has to be.    
  
In the heat of the moment he gives up the pretenses of being detached, kicking the door open rather than taking the time to use the sonic and immediately pulling Rose against him. He tries to lighten the moment by telling what appear to be the living corpses that this is his dance (he doesn't yet mean dancing in the way that he soon will, though maybe in the back of his mind he does just a little bit). His arm stays firmly wrapped around her waist though and her fingers brush the lapel of his jacket and he knows this isn't the way he's supposed to be holding a girl who is his charge. Still he doesn't let go.    
  
They fight like a married couple and he just doesn't do domestics so he threatens to take her home. He regrets the words as soon as he's said them but he can't help secretly delighting in the fact that it is an effective threat. He wouldn't take her home for disagreeing with him. This is a sensitive subject though and while he loves when she challenges him most of the time he will not be responsible for the end of another species just because it doesn't quite fit his companion's morality. She is young. She doesn't understand.   
  
They are backed into a corner and yes he regrets that he let the Gelth use Gwyneth to escape but that doesn't change the fact that offering the species a chance at a real life was wrong. Stubborn, he is. Rose's initial reactions and fear are understandable but it's when she accepts it and askes if they'll "go down fighting together yeah?" that he gives up pretending, at least for the moment. He takes her hand tells her earnestly that he's so glad he met her because that's as close as he can get to what he thinks he might have actually wanted to say but that's absurd. He's only known her a few days and she is so young and fantastic and he is so old and broken and does not deserve this.


End file.
